TimePilot Definitions

Shifts

What's a shift schedule?
A shift is a period of time that an employee or group of employees works.

The system comes with a pre-set "No Shift." This can be used if you just want the system to keep track of employee hours, and don't need it to  determine whether an employee is late or early. If you want to track whether employees are early or late, you'll need to set up at least one shift (you can have as many as you want in the TimePilot software).

When you set up employees, each gets assigned to a shift (or No Shift if you don't want to track their hours).

Here's how to set up a shift:

1. Click the "Setup Menu" in TimePilot Central, and choose "Shift Setup."
2. Click the "Add a Shift Schedule" button to create a new shift. To edit or delete a specific shift, click on the name of the shift and then "Edit a Shift Schedule" or "Delete a Shift Schedule."
   
   
    
3. Give the shift a name (examples: "Days," "Nights" or "First" or "Second").
4. Click "Yes" or "No" to answer the question "Do you want to include a lunch period in this Shift Schedule?" If you click "Yes," Lunch Out and Lunch In fields will appear in the middle columns of the screen when you click a checkbox next to a day. Clicking "No" will cause the two lunch-time columns to remain hidden, because you won't need them.
5. Click the checkboxes next to the days of your shift, then adjust the start and end times and (if needed) the lunch breaks.
6. There are four more tabs across the top of the box: Snap-To, Early/Late, Day Boundary and Breaks. These settings are optional; descriptions are below. When you're finished, click "Save" to close the window.
   • Snap-To: Do you want your employees to be able to clock in a few minutes early and not go "on the clock" until their shift starts? Or clock out a few minutes late but go "off the clock" when their shift ends? Snap-To is where you set that up. For details, click here and here.
   • Early/Late: When you activate this feature, TimePilot Central compares your employees' shift schedules to when they clock in or out and flags tells you when they clock in early or late. For a complete description, click here. 
   • Day Boundary: Do you have a shift schedule that might extend across the end of one day and the start of another? You can define a workday by setting a Day Boundary. For a complete description, click here.
     
   • Breaks: Do your employees get paid breaks? You can set the system to keep track of their breaks and alert you when an employee remains clocked out for longer than the break period. For a complete description, click here and here.